A sex columnist turns to fiction

Will she be a vixen? Will her breasts spill out of her shirt as she puffs a cigarette and her thong peeks out of her jeans?

No. No. And no. Natalie Krinsky, 22, is standing outside New Haven's Yorkside Pizza clad in a long brown jacket with a high neck, stiletto-heeled pointy-toe boots and a vintage Louis Vuitton purse (courtesy of her grandmother, who used to work in the Paris store and now allows her granddaughter to raid her closet).

She's a nice Jewish girl from the Upper East Side (by way of a Toronto suburb), and before you know it, you're talking about boys you both know, whom they're dating and whom they used to date. She's the kind of woman who makes you comfortable enough to spill, a handy quality during her three-year tenure as the Yale Daily News' sex columnist, where she wrote Sex in the (Elm) City.

She returned to Yale last week after graduating in May to sign her first novel, "Chloe Does Yale" (Hyperion, $19.95). It's quintessential "chick lit," about the trials and tribulations of a Yale Daily News sex columnist.

Some parts true

Krinsky admits the framework of the book is autobiographical, but the specifics aren't.

"Chloe is definitely a character," says Krinsky, who works for a New York ad agency while writing her second novel. "I'm a lot more blase in my writing. Some things are rooted in reality, but the story is fiction."

Interspersed between chapters are Chloe's columns, many of which are actually Krinsky's from the Daily News. Krinsky's first column at Yale. The columns were well received by students, but alumni often weren't thrilled.

"We were talking about how to liven up the section and thought it would be fun and funny to have a sex column," says Chris Rovzar, the former Scene editor at the Daily News. "Natalie immediately came to mind. The great thing about Natalie is she's friends with everyone. She hung out with athletes, theater kids, the girls who go shopping in New York on the weekends. She had access to every level of the social scene. She's renowned for her sense of humor and her no-holds-barred approach to life."

Maybe that comes from her time spent in an all-female sketch-comedy troupe at Yale.

Sex and the (Elm) City was so popular that some columns received more than 350,000 hits. It even made its way to her father's inbox, forwarded by a colleague who thought it was hysterical but didn't realize it was his friend's daughter.

Krinsky had hit a nerve. Soon The New York Times, Associated Press and "Today" show called for interviews.

No longer taboo

Collegiate sex isn't new, but it's no longer taboo. Though she wasn't the first newspaper columnist to weigh in on the subject, Krinsky's style, humor and honesty seemed to pave the way for frank discussions.

Last year, Harvard students created H-Bomb, a journal that examines sexuality. Last month, Boink arrived, Boston University's contribution to college sex publications.

Krinsky points to such shows as "Sex and the City" and MTV's "Loveline" (viewers call in to ask Dr. Drew Pinsky about sex) as factors that set the scene for open discussions on sex. Add to that sexed-up young stars such as Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson -- though she does acknowledge there is a paradox in that they both touted their virginity -- and the proliferation of chick lit, and a genre was born.

"In Boston, we have a political reputation for being liberal," says Christopher Anderson, co-founder of BU's Boink. (He's a 38-year-old fine-art photographer who co-founded the magazine with BU student Alecia Oleyourryk.). "But the Puritan ethic still holds true with sex. This is a reaction to it. When you're forced in one direction, there's a counter-reaction."

All this piqued novelist Tom Wolfe's attention. He spent months researching his latest book, "I Am Charlotte Simmons," visiting campuses across the country. He went to frat parties, bars, classes and dorm rooms. The result is a novel about sex-crazed students who grind on dance floors and kick their roommates out when they want to bring a hookup home (a practice called sexiling).

A student at the book-signing asked Krinsky if she is prepared to be compared to Wolfe.

Krinsky took media expert Steven Brill's exclusive journalism seminar at Yale. When she was contacted by a publishing agent out of the blue, she went to Brill. He introduced her to Joni Evans, who is also Ann Coulter and Peggy Noonan's agent.